The Mage War

by Ben S. Dobson

  “Breathe,” she said gently. “Is still time. We will try again, but first, breathe.” It wasn’t an easy thing to ask—Kadka wasn’t feeling particularly calm herself. Carver was trapped, and he couldn’t wait forever. Whatever Endo had planned for him, she knew it wouldn’t be anything good. But if Nevka lost control and burned the Hesliar to cinders, it wouldn’t be much of a rescue either.

  Nevka inhaled deep and exhaled slow. “I’m sorry, I just…”

  Kadka stroked his neck. “Is hard to see one you love like this. I know. But you are stronger than this anger.”

  The heat lessened, just a bit, but Nevka didn’t answer; instead, he looked anxiously to the fight above.

  Syllesk was soaring in close to the ship, with Iskar on her back—he’d joined her after the silver tendrils had yanked Carver aboard the Hesliar. The little ones were too young to fight alone; just like Nevka, Syllesk needed someone to guide her. Kadka watched her dive for the deck, aiming a burst of silver-blue flame at the ship. A volley of cannon fire forced her to swerve before she could take down the shields.

  Endo’s dragon moved to block her way before she could recover. It didn’t bother to avoid the cannons—they tried to fire around its massive bulk, but a stray ancryst ball clipped the edge of its wing membrane, and it didn’t so much as flinch. It was beyond pain, now. One of many advantages. It was fast, too, enough that it almost seemed capable of being in two places at once. Big enough that its wingspan could shelter the broad side of the Hesliar almost entirely. Splitting up to divide its focus wasn’t working; neither Syllesk nor Nevka was strong enough alone to hold its attention until the other could break through the ship’s defenses.

  Iskar and Syllesk fell back, dropped down to hover beside Kadka and Nevka. Endo’s dragon didn’t give chase. It never did, so long as they kept their distance—they’d tried more than once to lure it away, with no luck. Iskar was whispering in Syllesk’s ear, stroking her neck. Silver fury glinted in her eyes, and though it dimmed as Iskar soothed her, Kadka could feel the heat of that anger under the skin, just like Nevka’s.

  “It’s too strong, too fast, even for its size,” Iskar shouted to Kadka, barely audible over the sound of streaming wind and cannon fire above. “And it should need longer to replenish its dragonfire. I can only guess that Endo is channelling Astral strength into it beyond what a living dragon could expend without killing itself.”

  “What, then?” Kadka yelled back. “Carver is trapped. Needs us.”

  “I don’t know,” said Iskar. “I had hoped… if we could find a way to commune with it, that our shared Astral bond would help. But I don’t see a way to get near enough without being attacked.”

  Syllesk interrupted then, pointing with her snout back at the Hesliar. “Look,” she said. “What’s that?”

  A hatch had opened on the underside of the hull, and a brass sphere emerged—much like Carver’s charm globe, but big enough to fit Kadka inside if she squeezed. Steel claws held it in place. The airship moved, a small, precise adjustment of position.

  Like it was taking aim.

  Kadka glanced down at the water. The harbor was nearly empty—the Audish and Belgrian ships had all gathered at the shore. Klenn must have been successful in convincing Kaiser Gerrolt of the only sensible plan. That was good, at least. All that remained was the Estian fleet, less than a dozen now, sailing for the harbor’s mouth at full speed. Apparently they’d decided to make their escape while the dragon was distracted.

  And now, they were almost directly below Endo’s blockade. Kadka instinctively understood what was about to happen.

  But there was no time to stop it. To either side, successive explosions of spellfire obliterated ships below, dropped from the two smaller airships under Endo’s control. And then the Hesliar released its own weapon. The claws retracted, and the brass orb plummeted toward the water. Toward the Estian ships.

  Just above the center of the fleet, it exploded into silver flame.

  It was over in an instant. At the center of the detonation, where the Estian flagship and several others had been, nothing remained but ash. Toward the edge, one ship hadn’t been completely destroyed, but it listed heavily as water rushed into the massive hollow seared into its hull. Fewer than a half-dozen ships remained of the Estian fleet, and they were in complete disarray, scattering in search of safety. They wouldn’t find it. They didn’t have the speed to outrun airships.

  From the open hatch on the Hesliar’s hull, another brass orb emerged. The big airship altered its course, heading for one of the fleeing Estian vessels.

  Kadka had no love for Estians, but she couldn’t just sit by while they were slaughtered without any hope of defense. She bent over Nevka’s neck, pointed at the brass globe. “Go. Stay under cannons. Maybe we knock it off course.”

  Nevka obeyed with a powerful flap of his wings. He said nothing, but his anger was obvious; the heat was growing again. Syllesk’s too—she flew close beside them, and angry silver light glowed in her eyes. Kadka’s heart ached for them both; they were too young to have this in their memories.

  But before she could say anything to soothe them, the stolen dragon cut across their path. It flared massive wings, arched its neck back. Nevka stopped short, and the rage inside him flared so hot that Kadka felt fire in her veins, nearly cried out in pain. He was on the verge of losing himself.

  There was no time to pull him back. No time even to dodge. The bigger dragon had a clear line on them, and they were too close. Kadka threw an arm over her face, braced herself for the dragonfire she knew was coming, from one of them or both.

  Nothing happened.

  Kadka lowered her arm. The hot, furious pain of Nevka’s rage was already fading. Endo’s dragon was still there, but it had fallen still, moving its wings just enough to keep itself in the air. Its eyes were unfocused, fixed on some faraway point. Behind it, the brass globe remained clasped to the Hesliar’s belly, and the smaller airships to either side had ceased their bombardment as well. The few remaining Estian ships passed by below, unharmed, into the Audish Channel.

  Syllesk had come to a stop just beside Nevka, and both dragons looked back at their riders, uncertain how to proceed. The heat of their anger diminished rapidly; Syllesk’s eyes faded back to sapphire. The way Iskar had explained it, Dragonrage rose from the instinctive need to protect family. Seeing their lost sibling suffering under Endo’s control, trying to hurt them, keeping them away—Kadka understood how those things could feed the fire inside the little ones. She didn’t have the same power in her, but her fury was no less for it. But this strange stillness felt different. It felt like an opening.

  Kadka and Iskar glanced at one another. She raised an eyebrow, cocked her head. He nodded.

  Whatever this was, it gave them a chance they might not get again. “Closer,” she said to Nevka. “But go slow.”

  Side by side, Nevka and Syllesk approached. Their stolen sibling didn’t react, didn’t even look at them. There was no sign that it realized they were there at all, though a few moments ago it had been ready to burn them out of the sky.

  They were nearly there when the Hesliar gave a great shuddering jerk, and its nose began to rise, far too quickly. In the space of a few moments, the huge airship had sloped so sharply upward that it was nearly vertical, and then it began to ascend at high speed.

  Carver had intended to steer the ship away from Thaless. Apparently he’d seized his moment.

  But without help, he had no way out.

  “Keep going!” Kadka shouted at Iskar. “Talk to dragon, if you can!” And then she patted Nevka’s neck, and pointed to the Hesliar. “We have airship to catch.”

  _____

  Tane gripped Endo’s chair tight and held the talisman in place with his other hand as they fell together along the steep incline of the deck. The siphon pulsed ice through his limbs and out to his fingers, made it difficult to keep hold, but he had no choice. If I let go, he’ll kill me. Not that hitting the wall below with
the bulk of the chair on top of him was a much better option.

  But the impact didn’t come. At the last moment, Endo activated the levitation glyphs on his chair to arrest their fall. “Let go!” He accelerated upward and rotated wildly in the air, trying to shake Tane’s grip. Lost in panic and unbalanced by the extra weight, he didn’t see the control panel coming.

  They crashed hard into the Hesliar’s instruments, and the chair hit first. Under the weight of brass and copper and steel, levers bent and switches broke. The ship’s wheel jerked to the right, and the Hesliar followed, cartwheeling in the air.

  Tane and Endo tumbled through the rapidly rotating cabin, completely out of control, and yet Endo’s full attention was still on the talisman in his neck. He half-turned in his chair, scrabbling to dislodge Tane’s hand. Over his shoulder, the huge forward-facing windows of the bridge loomed close.

  “Look out!” Tane cried.

  Too late.

  They crashed through the huge pane of glass, into open air. Endo pounded another sigil on his chair, activated a shielding artifact; it deflected most of the shards away, keeping the two of them from being cut to ribbons.

  Tane didn’t have time for relief. Unlike Endo, he wasn’t strapped into the chair, and the impact jarred his weakened fingers loose. He flew free. One shoulder struck the Hesliar’s spinning deck, sent him bouncing toward the edge. An iron bar cracked against his side as he hit the railing. He wrapped both arms around it. Blue sky whirled around him; he couldn’t tell which way was up, couldn’t find the sea below.

  What he could see only came in glimpses as the Hesliar wheeled about in its wild spiral: Endo, hovering free in the sky, reaching back to claw the talisman from his neck; a silver dragon swooping up from below. Tane couldn’t tell which one, whether it was friend or foe.

  His vision blacked out briefly, returned, blacked out again. The siphon had taken too much already. His arms were slipping.

  Should have known I’d die on an ancryst vehicle of one kind or another.

  His grip failed.

  _____

  “Closer!” Kadka leaned out from Nevka’s neck, reaching for Carver as he plummeted from the Hesliar.

  Nevka dove alongside, inched closer, trying to match speed. Kadka’s fingertips brushed Carver’s shoulder, lost purchase, only succeeded in pushing him further away. Nevka was trying, but he couldn’t get her into a better position without battering Carver with his wings.

  Only one way, then. With one hand, Kadka gripped a thick neck spine, and then she gathered her legs under her and pushed off from Nevka’s back. Winds buffeted her from side to side, and all that kept her from being ripped away into freefall were five white-knuckled fingers. She stretched out with her free hand, grabbed for Carver, missed as a strong gust threw her off target. Reached out once more, felt rough fabric against her palm, clutched her hand into a fist to keep hold. Carver’s waistcoat bunched up firmly in her grasp, and she tugged him closer. The fabric held.

  “Nevka!” she called.

  Nevka slowed his dive, leveled out in a swoop that carried his body beneath Kadka. She and Carver both collided hard with silver scales. Kadka kept her grip, yanked Carver close and wrapped her arm around him. Her legs locked once more around Nevka’s neck.

  At the same moment, a massive crash sounded from her right. She snapped her head around to look.

  The Hesliar, utterly out of control, had spun into one of the smaller airships. Neither of their shields were enough to withstand the impact. Hulls ground together; envelopes bulged and burst, huge splits opening in their shimmering skin.

  And then the Hesliar’s exposed spellfire orb detonated.

  Kadka clutched Carver to her chest with one arm and shielded her eyes with the other as an explosion of silver flame filled the sky, swallowing massive portions of both ships. A sputtering lift spell arrested the fall of several slabs of wrecked hull for a moment, and then failed. What remained of Audland’s first airship fell into the sea in a rain of charred wood and melted metal.

  “I’m sorry, Allaea.” Carver’s voice was raw and weak, barely a whisper. His face was pale, his eyes sunk into dark pits. His head fell against Kadka’s chest, and his eyelids fluttered closed.

  “Carver?” She shook him gently.

  He didn’t answer, didn’t move. If he was breathing, it was very shallow. She glanced at his shoulder; his talisman was missing.

  “Deshka.” Kadka reached for her own talisman, clasped it to pull it out. She wasn’t going to let Carver go this way. He’d saved her from it once; she meant to return the favor.

  “Wait,” said Nevka. His neck was craned back to look at her. “You need that. I think I can help.” He looked at Carver for a moment, squinting in concentration. A flash of silver surfaced in the sapphire of his eyes.

  For a moment, nothing happened.

  And then Carver’s eyes snapped open. He drew in a deep breath, as if testing that he could. His gaze met Kadka’s, and he was already shaking his head. “Kadka, I won’t take your—” He looked to his shoulder, cut off when he saw that there was no talisman there. “Wait. How?”

  Kadka just shrugged, tipped her head toward Nevka. “Ask him.”

  “It’s nothing.” Nevka sounded almost shy. “I just… felt what was going out of you, and put some back. Is it helping?”

  Carver’s color was returning rapidly—he’d told her once that the Astra would always rush to fill an empty space, so long as nothing was stopping it. He was strong enough now to sit upright, clasp Nevka’s neck himself without Kadka’s support. “You mean you’re… what, giving me some of your Astral essence? Could you always do that?”

  “I don’t know,” said Nevka. “I never had to try before.”

  “Creatures of the Astra.” Carver looked at Nevka with a kind of awe. “Like Iskar always says, but I never imagined this kind of…” He frowned. “Wait. Isn’t that just draining you instead? If you have to keep replacing what’s being taken from me. Dragons can be riven too.”

  “I have more in me than you, Uncle Tane. I can do it for a while.” Nevka looked at Kadka with some uncertainty. “Can’t I? Please? I don’t want him to…”

  “For now,” Kadka said. “Is good you want to help, but not if you trade your life. If is too hard, tell us.” She looked at Carver. “Where is your talisman? Does Endo take it?”

  “In a manner of speaking,” Carver answered with a slight smirk. “Turns out if you stab a mage with it, it stops them channelling the Astra properly.” He looked toward the place where the Hesliar had fallen; the remains were scattered across the surface of the harbor. “Where is he?”

  Kadka hadn’t seen Endo go anywhere; she’d been distracted saving Carver. “Explodes with airship, I hope.”

  Tane’s face went pale at that. “No. He can’t… I saw him fly free.” Panicked for reasons Kadka couldn’t understand, he searched the sky in all directions, leaned over to look down toward the sea. “There!”

  Below, where Carver was pointing, a glint of silver-blue caught Kadka’s eye. It was Endo, the magic symbols on his chair glowing as they struggled to keep him aloft. The dragon he’d stolen was directly beneath him, and it was no longer still. Syllesk and Iskar were hovering close, but they saw it arch its neck and anticipated the dragonfire before it came, diving out of reach. The larger dragon scorched the sky where they’d just been. With a great beat of its wings, it launched itself upward to meet its master.

  Endo glided into place on the dragon’s back. His chair locked into a harness between its shoulders.

  And then, ignoring both Syllesk and Nevka, Endo turned his dragon away and soared toward shore.

  “Spellfire,” Carver cursed. “He said he wanted to deal with the gathering at the waterfront. He’s going to break them up, and the only tool he’s got left is dragonfire.”

  “After them!” Kadka barked to Nevka. Below, Syllesk and Iskar were already pursuing.

  “How was Syllesk so close?” Carver asked as they g
ave chase. “Did they find a way to get through to it?”

  “It stops, goes still,” said Kadka. “Just before airship loses control. Lets us come near.” Something occurred to her. “Is this when you put talisman in Endo? Stop his magic?”

  Carver nodded. “Around then. But… his puppets have always been able to act autonomously when they need to. Cutting him off shouldn’t have…” He glanced down at Nevka. “Although, if dragons are so connected to the Astra, and there’s something left of it in there, maybe there’s some will opposing Endo. Something he can’t control without direct connection.”

  “Is not just animating like others, then. He makes it his slave.” Kadka’s jaw tensed, and her fists clenched where they gripped Nevka’s spines. “If we burn him out of sky, he loses control too.”

  “We can’t.” Carver’s shoulders slumped. “Kadka, he can’t die. He’s arranged it so that the siphon won’t stop if he does. He’s the only one who can end it.”

  “He tells you this? You believe him?” Kadka’s first instinct was to assume everything Endo Stooke said was a lie.

  “With Thorpe’s machine, the way it can focus Astral energy without a living source… it’s possible. I don’t think we can take the chance. If he’s not lying, killing him means the siphon will expand until there are no non-magicals left for it to drain. We have to get him to stop it. If he releases the spell, he won’t be able to start it again without access to the machine to give him the initial power. I just… don’t know how to make him do it.”

  Kadka looked ahead, at the dragon Endo had stolen from her family. She narrowed her eyes. “So he has to live.” A savage grin stretched across her face. “But he can still hurt. We will find way to convince him, I think.”